Dying & Not – With My God

Over the course of my many years on this earth, I’ve experienced many what I call miracles in my life. Among those is one experience God gave me during my several years of being homeless. These involved the subject of death.

I had starting hitchhiking across country from Seattle Washington to my final destination of Lewiston, Maine. I had stopped for the night in a town about halfway to my destination, it’s so long ago I don’t remember the name of the town. I sought out the local homeless shelter to spend the night but stayed for a couple of weeks to rest. Traveling across country with my thumb out is exhausting.

One night at the shelter I had a dream in which I felt myself dying. I felt the presence of God in the dream, but my attention was on my present feeling of leaving my body. I had heard of people dying and leaving their body before (out of body experiences), which caused me to start panicking. I was dying but I didn’t want to. I struggled against the process of dying, I didn’t want to die, I was afraid to die! Then at that point I woke up and after several minutes of calming myself I found I was still alive, I began to feel distressed. I felt I had let God my Father down and somehow missed out on an opportunity to be closer to God.

I felt depressed and extremely sorry. I prayed to God and said that if He would give me another chance someday, I would completely trust Him. I wanted to completely trust Him. It was important to me. I had no idea it would happen the next night.

As happened the night before, I fell asleep. Again I felt the same process of dying. I promised I would trust my God and did. It didn’t matter what happened to me. I trusted My God. As I felt my myself begin to leave my body I felt calm. I heard small popping sounds like threads breaking. I felt the breaking feeling also. I began to rise and then it ended. I woke up in bed. I felt such a tremendous feeling of joy and happiness, greater then I had ever felt before. It was ecstatic beyond belief. I had kept my promise to my God, He showed my what dying was like. I feel when the real thing happens, I’ll embrace it rather then fear it.

My God is an awesome God.

By David M Peterson
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To read more of my encounters with my God during my cross country adventure click here.